The Situation in Washington D.C.
In what could be a watershed moment for the American legal system, and American politics altogether, a recent Politico report has revealed that the US Supreme Court is considering overturning the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, giving all American women the right to an abortion.
The Court has not yet voted on the decision, but after former President Trump appointed three pro-life justices to the Court during his tenure, the odds of Roe being overturned are higher than pro-choice advocates are comfortable with.
Roe protects a woman’s right to choose through an inferred right to privacy found throughout the US Constitution. The argument from the pro-life side is that abortion is not mentioned specifically anywhere in the document, and therefore a woman’s right to choose should not be upheld.
However, the Court has upheld Roe in a separate decision, 1992 Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, with three conservative justices ruling that whilst they personally did not agree with abortion, the inferred right to privacy and respect for legal precedent were too important to overturn the decision.
Respect for legal precedents is perhaps the most concerning concept at risk with this looming decision; if rulings made by the court previously can just be overturned because a certain political persuasion has a majority, any future rulings would lose a great deal of legitimacy.
If Roe, and the inferred right to privacy that it protects, is overturned, then other rulings that rely on it will be at risk, including the right to contraception, private consensual sexual activity, and same sex marriage.
The Reaction
Congressional Democrats are working on plans to enshrine the right to an abortion in law, effectively sidestepping the reliance on the Court to decide the matter.
There has also been immense public backlash and political outrage in response to the Politico report, placing a great deal of pressure on the Court.
Upcoming midterm elections in the US are expected to be heavily influenced by this news, with the threat to Roe mobilising higher turnout from Democrats to try and protect the ruling.
This issue has once again brought the political nature of the US Supreme Court to the forefront of national debate, de-legitimising the institution’s supposed impartiality still further.
The Court currently has a large conservative majority, with six out of the nine sitting Justices placed by a Republican President.
Also, Congressional Democrats do not have a large enough majority to win a vote on this matter in the Senate, having only the slimmest of majorities thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’s deciding vote.
This would make any such vote entirely symbolic, merely outlining which Senators are on which side of the argument, allowing for voters in the upcoming midterm elections to make clearer decisions.
The Consequences
The decision the Supreme Court is currently considering has long been one of the Republican party’s main objectives. It is their view, and the view of conservative Justices, that only a limited amount of rights and freedoms are recognised by the Constitution, and these are the ones most deeply rooted in American history and tradition.
This view is woefully counter-productive and counter-progressive. The Constitution was written specifically to be flexible, including means to add and remove amendments if society progressed past them. Taking away rights not only already established, but upheld multiple times by the Court, is contrary to the forward-thinking nature of the document.
It is projected that if Roe vs Wade is overturned, thirteen states will enact a full ban on abortion as soon as the decision is passed, including Texas, the third-most populous state in the Union.
A further fourteen states could enact bans on abortions before foetal viability, including Florida and Georgia, and five have pre-Roe abortion bans that could be re-validated if the decision is overturned.
No Point, No Benefit
Being pro-choice myself, the decision to take away a woman’s right to choose makes completely no sense.
It is a right that American women have enjoyed since 1973. In the most radical states, the overturning of Roe could mean on the harshest terms; not even in cases of rape or incest, only in the most restrictive circumstances where the mother’s life is threatened.
It is something that I did not expect of the American legal system. I thought better of them than this. Abortion is such a deeply personal decision for a woman to make that surely they can be trusted to make it by themselves.
The reasoning for this hard-line conservative decision is quite clear; it panders to the Republican voter base more perhaps than any other policy. The Christian fundamentalists that seem to have taken over the party in recent years have wanted Roe overturned as a matter of priority.
It serves no purpose to progress or improve the lives of the American people, only to please those whose delicate sensibilities it offends, religious or otherwise.
The choice is for women and women alone to make, at an individual level. Men are incapable of empathising with such a decision because they do not and will never have the capacity to make such a decision. Of course, in individual cases the father’s opinion should always be counted and valued, but ultimately, the final decision will always rest with the woman.
There are obviously women who disagree with abortion, and their views, just like the views of every single other US citizen, should be respected. Allowing other women the choice to have abortions is not restricting their rights in any way.
However, taking away that right does just that to pro-choice women. That is the true hypocrisy at the heart of the pro-life argument. No-one is forcing pro-life women to have abortions, but pro-lifers will force pro-choice women not to.
Not only this, but recent polling has revealed a strong majority (sixty-four percent) of Americans do not want to see Roe overturned. Even a majority of Republican voters (fifty-two percent) do not wish to see abortion made illegal!
Needless to say, if this decision is taken, it will remove a right instead of establishing one against the wishes of the American people, as well as deepen existing divisions in an already divided nation.
This is all part of the legacy of the most misguided step the US has taken in its post-war history; electing Donald Trump to the presidency.
It was the downright abysmal timing of his election coinciding with three Supreme Court vacancies during his short tenure, along with the Republican party’s downward moral trajectory (also exacerbated by Trumpism), that has allowed this unfortunate series of events to unfold.
Hopefully, given enough political pressure from pro-choice politicians on Capitol Hill, and social pressure from altruistic, enlightened Americans out on the streets, the Court will either not go through with the vote, or enough Justices will see the danger that overturning Roe will cause, and vote with the American people, not against them.
stay safe
/e
